CES 2018: FotoNation Shows The Best Portrait Retouching In Real Time VR

After a brief stop at Lenovo and HTC booths, to see the new Vive Pro headset with Wireless Vive Adaptor and Mirage Solo, a standalone mobile VR gear, I popped by Xperi booth. Instead of a dry presentation of new software solutions, as is the custom, I found myself actually experiencing their technology first-hand. By far, the most impressive (and fun) was FotoNation‘s (an Xperi Corporation brand) beautification solution for VR. Turns out, you can do natural, flawless retouching in real time virtual reality! #realitymagic

As a person who never shies away from VR experiences (did you see this at IFA?), you can imagine my excitement when the team encouraged me to put on Oculus Gear VR goggles and see their latest imaging solution with my own eyes. I didn’t know what to expect – they refused to give me more details beforehand – so I definitely didn’t see this Angelina Jolie doppelganger coming.

I was astonished to see her skin texture and tone improve visibly, her eye circles disappear as if by magic while color temperature was adjusted so the entire experience would look natural in VR at 30fps. All the adjustments took place in real time and even so, I didn’t see a glitch to speak of. I was told that this creative VR experience wouldn’t have been possible without the help of WorkHorse, an up-and-coming Romanian content creation studio.

That’s not all. I was excited to see their work for the security and automotive industries, as well. With the various car concepts and vehicle technologies present this week in Las Vegas, it was no surprise that Xperi had developed face detection and tracking software for driver monitoring. Relying on neural networks technology, it’s capable of analyzing the person’s features and establish their mood:

Plus, as technology advances, it could be the building block for other in-cabin features, including driver profiles for smart vehicles:

Final thoughts? It was pretty great to Xperience all of this in the last day of CES 2018. Now is time to go home… until next year!